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"The Mindworm" by C.M. Kornbluth
The Mindworm is a short story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth and was published in a collection of other short stories in 1950. A "handsome j.g." and a ship nurse birthed a boy but gave him up to a fondling home. The boy was considered un-adoptable because he was "exceptionally unattractive-looking" and he grew up rather miserable. A doctor and the home's athletic nurse first suspected that he could read minds but hoped he would grow out of it. He grew up as an unwanted outcast. He began traveling around and ended up going to northern cities, not staying in any city for too long. He would select an unsuspecting individual and feed off of them before robbing them. Before long, city folk began hunting for the person/"molester" who was harming their citizens. This didn't frighten the Mindworm, only pushed him to be more cautious in his actions. As he traveled to various cities, he realized that while he was able to read minds, he was not always able to understand the language that people were thinking in. Ultimately, one town''s people realized his actions and burst into his hotel room while he was napping. Mustached old men staked him through the heart and slit his throat as he realized that he was not the first of his kind and this was not the first time this town had seen something like him. It is clear that throughout the story the Mindworm struggles with his identity and his purpose, especially having grown up being unwanted. Most of his actions were primarily for his survival. He would take the money and nourishment he needed from his victims. Throughout the story, there is no mention of the Windworm's name, adding to his identity struggle. This also made it more difficult for readers to understand the nature of the story. Author, Kornbluth, had actually graduated from high school at the age of 13 and most likely felt similarly to the Mindworm (in terms of social/peer status). As he traveled the country, he listened in on conversations here and there, but never was fully noticed. It is not until the very end of the story that the readers were fully aware that the Mindworm was in fact a vampire. Unlike other vampire tales (e.g. The Vampyre), the Mindworm was able to travel during the day and there was no written word of fascination or obsession with blood. There is also a lack of romanticism in this story, which often seems to be a focal point for many vampire tales. This made it easier for audience members to initially connect with a lone character who is outcast and alone. Despite feeling different and not special, he realized that he was not the first or only of his kind in the end. Although this realization only came upon his death, it provides a more nourished end to the tale. References https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Cyril%20M.%20Kornbluth http://skemman.is/stream/get/1946/17164/40073/1/BA_Essay_-_El%C3%ADsabet_Erla_Kristjánsdóttir.pdf Dolores Gonzalez One of the Mindworm's main victims is named Dolores "Dolly" Gonzalezhttps://d2l.arizona.edu/d2l/le/content/563364/viewContent/4977167/View. The Mindwormhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mindworm takes great pleasure in going along with people's greatest desires in order to feed off of their thoughts. Posing as "Michael Brent," the Mindworm pretends to fall in love with Dolly until her emotions are strong enough to satisfy his desires. He spends a day fulfilling her every desire, play-acting as the perfect Americ an husband with a fancy car, second and third homes, an ex-wife. Dolores represents the desire of children born to immigrants to be "American." This desire is manifested in her changing of her name from Dolores to the more American "Dolly." She fights with her mother, telling her "I don't know how many times I tell you not to call me that Spick name no more!" Dolly represents the societal intricacy of the post-World War II America, populated with immigrants from Europe and the Americas. Jeffrey Cohen once wrote that "the monster signifies something other than itself: it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again."https://d2l.arizona.edu/d2l/le/content/563364/viewContent/4841247/View This story explores the cultures of immigrants in America, as their children struggle to find a place in both the place where they were born and the culture their parents come from. The story is highly dependent on the Mindworm's ability to hear thoughts, as this is what alerts him to the high emotions on which he feeds. The Mindworm hears words in other languages, and while he cannot understand them, he is still able to key into the emotions behind the words. His supernatural gift to hear words reveals just how much of a melting-pot America truly is, and gives the reader the sense that Dolly's play-acting at her ideals of "Americanism" are truly tragic. However, the Mindworm's story is brought to an abrupt end as he wanders into an area populated with Eastern European immigrants, who see his power and understand what he truly is. When Dolly was tricked into buying into a pseudo-idealized American dream, she abandoned her culture and finds death as a restule. The Eastern European "moustached men" who kill the Mindworm have taken the knowledge inherent in their culture, and have used it to end the evil power which is the Mindworm. One critic writes that "Not only had Mindworm been unable to read their non-English minds and dismissive of their culture, he had taken for granted the fact that “he had not been the first of his kind, and that what clever people have not yet learned, some quite ordinary people have not yet entirely forgotten.” https://doomsdayer.wordpress.com/